The Trouble with Harry
by englishtutor
Summary: John is all the family Harry has left in the world. Can she keep her little brother from making a fool of himself with his new young girlfriend? Can she live with his decision if he refuses to give up on his pursuit of the unsuitable Mary Morstan?
1. Chapter 1

Old Alresford is a real and truly charming place with a long and fascinating history and a population of 599. However, I did have to fudge a bit with the geography to make the story work. I apologize to those who live there. I mean this only to be a tribute to your lovely community.

This chapter takes place two months after John and Mary start seeing each other.

000

She walked slowly from the shop and down the green towards the pub, happily admiring her little village in its bright Christmas dress. It was Friday, payday, and old Annie had handed it over in cash as usual. She would do as she had done every Friday for years—treat herself to dinner at the pub on her way home.

But she took her time, enjoying her walk. Old Alresford was the perfect place to live, which was fortunate because Harry Watson had lived here for her entire life. She could not imagine even just moving up the lane to the larger, more prestigious New Alresford. She certainly couldn't fathom living in London and could not understand why John was so drawn to big city living. He always had a place here, in the home where they had both grown up—the home in which she had lived more or less alone since he deserted her for a more exciting life twenty years ago. Those few years with Clara barely counted anymore.

The night air was cold and exhilarating and the twinkling fairy lights on every window were exciting with the promise of the season. And John would come home next week for the holiday and it would be like old times again. They would walk just like this through the village and enjoy its quaint loveliness, then have dinner at the pub. They would feel cosy in their ancestral home and he would buy her a tree and they could decorate it together with a great fire roaring on the old hearth, and then maybe they would play games or maybe he would read to her just like he had when they were kids together. John was two years younger than she, but he'd always taken care of her. He was the best brother a girl could have. He was all the family she had left in the world.

The pub was warm and welcoming when she arrived, and the owner, Joe, smiled and called out, "All right, Harry?" just as he always did. The ancient wooden beams were charmingly bedecked with evergreen garlands and white and red roses, and the mirrors behind the bar were brightened with holly and strings of fairy lights. She sat at her accustomed table and Joe asked, "Your usual, love?"

This was the best part of living in a small community for forty years—with a population of less than 600, everyone knew everyone else and it was like one big, caring family. Joe brought her a shepherd's pie with a side of chips and a large lemon squash and passed the time of day for a moment with the village's small news and gossip. From other tables, patrons acknowledged her with a friendly wave or a cheerful, "All right, Harry?" Old Alresford was heaven and no mistake. How could John have left it behind?

Speak of the devil! She'd only just finished her meal when her phone buzzed on the table like an annoying bottle fly. John's number. Why would John be calling her on a Friday? He always called her on Sunday nights, checking up on her, making sure she'd made it through the weekend and was safely at home, sober and getting a good night's rest for the work week to come. He rarely called her at any other time, unless it was bad news.

The phone stopped buzzing as she stared at it, paralyzed with sudden fear. What if something had happened to John? What if he'd been shot- again- and that was his flatmate, calling on John's cell to tell her that her brother was dead? Or injured? Or injured but at death's door? Or maybe it was that nice inspector chap she had met once calling to tell her that both John and Sherlock were dead?

No, that was silly. Sherlock or the inspector would use their own phones, wouldn't they? No, this was John calling all right. This was a repeat of last Christmas, wasn't it, when he'd called to tell her that he wouldn't be coming home after all because that outrageous flatmate of his was having some sort of emotional crisis over a women who had just died. John was always putting everyone else first, before his own sister, especially Sherlock Holmes. Harry felt her temper flare. That horrible, rude Sherlock Holmes! This would be entirely his fault, of course. She had met him a few times, and he had been insufferable every time. Just because she was a bit off her head with drink! And what business was it of Sherlock's if she should ask John for money?

Yes, that was it, of course. John was backing out of Christmas because of something his flatmate had done or said. Harry was furious. She shoved her phone into her pocket and marched up to the bar.

"Give me a double whiskey, Joe. Neat," she demanded.

Joe smiled down at her kindly. "Now, m'love, you know it's more'n my life's worth if your brother should find out I served you hard liquor in my establishment," he reminded her. "Anyway, it's no good for you, is it? You've been doing well since the rehab— you don't want to go buggerin' it up now, yeah?"

Harry whirled around and left in a huff, hoping no one else in the pub had heard. Of course, everyone surely had; this would be all over the village by midnight. 'Harry's fallen off the wagon, again!' they would all be saying. That was the worst of living in a small community for forty years—everyone knew everyone else's business and didn't mind sticking their noses in to meddle.

And how they all adored John! John was the only celebrity Old Alresford had boasted in centuries! Everyone in the village felt that John Watson belonged to them. Everyone thought they knew her brother personally, even though he hadn't lived there since he'd left at age eighteen. Old Joe imagined that John was his best mate, didn't he? Had some pictures torn out of the tabloids posted behind the bar for the tourists to see and ask about. But no one really knew John, did they? No one knew him like she knew him. He was HER brother—he didn't belong to them.

Harry trudged passed the green and down the Ox Drove cycle trail, ignoring the majestic willow trees she generally loved to admire and all the quaint little cottages with their Christmas wreaths on the doors. She had a few bottles of Jameson hidden away—John had searched the house while she was in rehab, of course, but she was too clever. He had found most of her stashes, but not this one! Dumping her for his flatmate again! She would show him!

At last, home hove into sight. She loved her home. The little yellow cottage had been in the Watson family for generations, enchanting with its lovely thatched roof and old-world charm. Her father had let it go to seed in his day, and when he crashed his car into a tree and died, their mother had worked two jobs just to keep food on the table for two growing children and there had been nothing left over to keep the house in good repair. But in the past several years, John had been spending any extra money he could lay his hands on to restore it to its former charm and keep it in good condition. It was perfect now, just perfect, and all due to John's efforts. Every good thing in Harry's life was due to John, wasn't it? She calmed a bit and brushed the angry tears from her eyes. This house, which technically belonged to him; her job at the shop which he'd worked out with Annie, their mother's best friend; even Clara had been his doing—he'd been friends with Clara since uni and had introduced them once when home on leave from Afghanistan. Of course, Clara had left her because of John, too- because of what had happened when John was in hospital. . . .

Getting worked up again, Harry hunted out her contraband whiskey and then looked for a glass. It was too much trouble, though, so she took a long swig straight out of the bottle. Ah, that was better! That always made everything feel better, didn't it? At least for a while.

000

She was planning to work up to good old drunk when the phone buzzed again insistently after only the second swallow. Well, she would just give him a piece of her mind, then, she would!

"John," she spat through gritted teeth.

"Harry? What's the matter?" he asked in his concerned voice. How dare he sound concerned when he knew full well what he was calling about?

"You know what's the matter! You're not coming home for Christmas again, you bastard! Everyone else is always more important than your sister, aren't they?" She studiously kept her voice steady. It wouldn't do to let him know she was drinking again. Not after the fortune he'd paid for her rehab. Well, she'd had plenty of practice. She could hide her drinking if she wanted to.

"What? What on earth makes you think that? Of course I'm coming for Christmas. I said I would, didn't I?" John soothed.

He had such a calming voice. It was what made him a good doctor, she imagined, and she was a bit abashed. "I'm . . . oh, I'm sorry! After last year, I guess I just assumed. . . ." Harry felt awful. How could she have doubted him when he was always so good to her? "Why are you calling on a Friday, then?"

"I'm calling to tell you I'm bringing someone with me for Christmas. A very special someone." He sounded so happy, so content and joyous, so excited and pleased with himself.

Harry's mood soured. "It isn't that horrible, hateful flatmate of yours, is it?" she grumbled. "I suppose you two finally decided to tie the knot?"

John snorted, amused. "Harry, I like women, remember? It's the one thing you and I have in common, yeah?" he teased. Oh, he was insufferably happy, wasn't he, when he was making a fool of himself?

"Oh, lord," she groaned. Another in John's long, long string of girlfriends, was it? Her handsome, charming brother had never had any trouble getting girlfriends—as a rugby player in school; as an army doctor in a romantic uniform; and now as a part of an exciting, internationally famous detective duo with a popular blog. He had always been an attractive catch. But the girls soon found that he needed the adrenaline rush that his work gave him more than he needed a relationship. Sooner or later—most commonly sooner—John was the ex-boyfriend of a jealous girl who did not like being second in priority. "Really, John, you're not bringing one of your temps to Christmas holiday, are you?"

"This isn't like that, Harry. This isn't temporary. I think. . . . I think I've found someone I could spend the rest of my life with," John said earnestly. Gods above! He really believed it!

"Seriously, John? And how long have you and this Wonder Woman been together?" she drawled sarcastically.

A short pause. "Well, we've been going out for two months, now. But I've known her for over a year. She's one of the doctors at the surgery where I work."

Two months! Well, that WAS longer than the usual duration. But that only made things worse, didn't it? John was usually a bit sad when he was dumped, but he got over it quickly because he hadn't had time to be truly emotionally invested in the relationship. This hanger-on might really break his heart when the inevitable break-up happened. Harry frowned. She had to think of a way to save her baby brother!

"Send me a picture," she demanded, stalling for time as she tried to think up a plan. John was always taking care of her. It was time she looked after his best interests for once.

"What?" John sounded startled. "Oh, right, hang on."

A moment later her text alert pinged and there on the screen was young, blond woman with a mischievous smile and dimples in her cheeks. Attractive blue eyes, too, like a sun-drenched sky. Harry could go for someone like that. . . . But!

"Oh, John," she sighed. "Really, I never took you for a paedophile. I mean, you do know this is a mere child, yeah?"

John sighed back. He had always been better at everything than Harry—even sighing. John was a master sigher. "Yeah, because the surgery is now hiring children as doctors." He was also better at sarcasm than she was. "Look, she is a bit younger than I am, but. . . ."

"A bit! John you're forty years old! And she looks to be barely out of school!"

"No, Harry, I am not forty. YOU are forty. And she is—well, I never asked her, actually - nearly thirty, I think. And what has age to do with anything, anyway?" John was getting impatient with her. Well, if that was what it took to save him from himself!

"Can't you see you're much too old for her? She can't really be interested in you—not in the REAL you! She's a gold-digger, that's what she is. She's after your money. How much have you spent on her so far?"

More sighing. "If she were after money, she would have noticed by now that I'm not worth her while. Anyway, I'm fairly certain Mary's income surpasses mine a good little bit—she's employed full-time and I'm just a locum. Look, I've found someone I really care about it. Can't you just be happy for me?"

Harry wasn't daunted. "She's probably a rabid fan, a groupie—you're just a celebrity notch on her belt. She'll move on when she meets someone more famous than you. "A sudden thought occurred. "Oh, she's trying to get to Sherlock through you, isn't she? That's what this is!" Now it all made sense!

Silence. Then he said wearily, "Look, when you meet her next week, you'll see how wrong you are. I know I've not been successful in relationships before, but this is different. Mary's different." He was using his excessively patient voice now, a sure sign he was on the edge of losing his temper.

But Harry pushed on. The drink in her made her bold. "Absolutely not, John! I won't have someone who is clearly taking advantage of you in our mother's house!" She grew a bit shrill in her passion to save her brother from this young tart. "I won't have it, do you hear? I forbid it! That hussy is NOT welcome here!" She steadied herself again. Shouting at John would just drive him away. "You come alone and it'll be just like old times, yeah? Just you and me in the old home. No outsiders," she pleaded.

Another patented Watson sigh. Harry could picture him pinching the bridge of his nose as he always did when exasperated with his sister. "All right, have it your way, Harry. Mary and I are spending our first Christmas together here then, alone. I'll come down and see you on Boxing Day and we'll hash this out." And he rung off abruptly.

This had not worked out the way Harry had wanted at all. She flung her phone down, too furious to cry. The bottle of Jameson beckoned her. Harry stroked it tenderly, like a lover.

000

To read about John and Mary's first Christmas together, see "All I Want for Christmas".


	2. Chapter 2

"We sold one of your originals after you went home last evening, dear," Annie announced when Harry arrived at the shop that morning.

She had walked to work through the golden dawn light at a quick pace in order to ward off the early April chill in the air and was a bit out of breath. Ignoring her employer, she turned to look at the wall where her watercolour paintings and ink drawings were displayed and noted the empty space where one of her "Church of St. Mary" renditions had been. She flushed with pleasure. Both her own artwork and Annie's were reproduced on notecards and calendars, mugs and coasters, trivets and teapots, and other such Old Alresford mementoes, and these sold like sweets to the tourist trade— it was their daily bread and butter. But to sell an original painting! This meant thousands of extra pounds in the bank.

"Now that spring has arrived at last, it would be good to lay in a new supply of originals," Annie hinted gently. "It's a new tourist season—we need to stock some fresh work for our regulars to pick from."

"Yes, yes, I know," Harry said irritably. "I'll take an easel out this afternoon and get started on a new St. Mary's." The old parish church was popular with the tourists. Or perhaps she would sketch some more Old Alresford House drawings. Local landscapes always sold well: the Pond and the Green, the old rectory, and the fulling mill—the usual tourist spots. When she was feeling especially inspired, she sought out other subjects of beauty—wild flowers, water fowl, grazing sheep, and Harry's own particular favourite, the willow trees on Ox Drove cycle path. She was not, however, feeling especially inspired of late.

Annie seemed not to notice her employee's moodiness. The kind old woman had always reminded Harry of a woolly sheep- round and soft and gentle, with fluffy white hair and mild eyes. "That will be fine, dear," the elderly woman bleated placidly as she turned the "Open" sign around on the door and prepared for the onslaught of customers searching for just the right souvenir.

Harry took her place behind the counter, ready to earn her hourly wage, undignified as it might be for an artist to work as a shop girl. Selling an original was an occasional windfall, but she could not count on it to pay the monthly bills. At sixteen, Harry had quit school to try her hand at art fulltime, but without any training her efforts simply floundered. Her mother's best friend, Annie, a local artist with her own shop, had soon stepped in, offering to give her lessons whenever she was able. Under Annie's expert guidance, Harry's natural talent flourished and her work began to sell. John had been proud of her then.

But two years later their mum had died, and John's job at the local market—after school and on weekends—had not brought in enough to make ends meet. He refused to quit school and work full time and had insisted that Harry take a paying job as well. He was sixteen himself by that time, a top student and hell-bent on becoming a doctor, and did not seem to understand how important Harry's art was and why she should not have to do _ordinary_ work. They had had a number of heated rows over it, with John complaining that he should not have to support the both of them by his own efforts alone and Harry standing firm that her art must not pushed aside in favour of lesser work.

Finally John, who had admittedly always been the clever one in the family, hit on the solution of Harry working in Annie's shop and selling her work at the same time. Annie's hands were already growing stiff and painful with arthritis and she was no longer churning out paintings as quickly as she had in the past, and so the potential of a new source of local art persuaded her take Harry on as an employee as well as a student. And here Harry had stayed for over twenty years, with Annie moving more and more slowly as time went by and depending more and more on her own daughter, Charlotte, and on Harry to keep things going.

But Harry had what she called an "artist's temperament". When she was feeling bright, she could turn out painting after painting. None of them were masterpieces, but the tourists seemed to appreciate them and though most could not afford an original piece, reproductions flew off the shelves. Those were the times when Harry felt all was right with the world.

However, when Harry was in a dark mood, she could not manage to paint or draw anything at all, and many days only the thought of making enough coin to pay for her Jameson could get her out of bed and into the shop. She could serve customers well enough when she was in her dark place of mind, but when she picked up pen or brush her hands trembled uncontrollably and she could not do a thing with them.

The village folk assumed that it was the drink that caused her hands to shake, but she had always suspected that was something more dire. After all, she noted as she readied the till for the day, her hands were steady enough just now even though she'd had a couple of shots with breakfast to get her going this morning. No, she had always had a feeling that there was something physically wrong with her during the dark times, and now she was certain she was right. John had an occasional tremor in his left hand due, he said, to nerve damage caused by the bullet that had ripped through his shoulder. That had to be it, of course. At some time in her childhood—some time she couldn't seem to remember, probably because it must have been terribly traumatic—Harry must have been injured enough to cause the same sort of nerve damage, which still caused her hands to shake. No one who knew her as a child could recall such an injury, but Harry was convinced it was the only explanation.

Old Annie greeted her first customers of the day, chatting pleasantly and patiently answering their questions about the local history and notable sites. It was an elderly couple and they dithered about, undecided about whether to buy a tea set with Harry's willow trees painted on them or a set of tumblers with a silhouette of the Old Alresford House etched on each. Annie was gentle and unhurried, but Harry felt she could scream if they didn't make up their minds soon. Fortunately, her phone buzzed and looking down, she saw it was John.

Motioning with her phone to Annie, Harry stepped outside with relief at the excuse to escape. But why was John calling her on a Wednesday? They had had such a row when he had come to see her on Boxing Day, ending with John asking her yet again to "get help", as he called it. Harry had reminded him in strong and pointed language that it was John who needed help; John, with his PTSD and his strange attachment to that psychopathic flatmate of his, and now with his unhealthy fixation on his unsuitably young girlfriend. They had not had much to say to each other since. John's perfunctory calls on Sunday nights had been excruciatingly civil and brief.

"John?" she asked, half afraid of bad news and half hoping he had at last come to his senses and was calling to admit that Harry had been right all along about that insufferable slag, Mary Morstan.

"Hi, Harry." John sounded happy but wary of her. "Listen, I'm going to be in Winchester tomorrow on business and wondered if you'd meet me for lunch. Anywhere you'd like. My treat."

Harry was instantly suspicious. What reason could John have for going to Winchester? She could only think of two: the solicitor, who had held John's will and other legal papers since John first joined the RAMC; and the bank, where Mum had paid for a safety deposit box decades ago in which to hide her few bits of treasures that she wanted to keep out of the hands of her drunken husband. "Why are you going to Winchester? Why not come here? It's only seven miles further on," she demanded.

"I can meet you for lunch there if you like," he replied cheerfully. "Just thought you might like something different from local fare. I'll finish my business In Winchester and meet you at the pub at one."

"What business do you have Winchester?" Harry demanded. "You're changing your will, aren't you? That . . . that horrible creature has convinced you to hand over all your assets to her. I knew it!"

John snorted with mirthless laughter. "What assets? Harry, I'm in a perpetual state of being broke. Any extra I might have laid by, I poured into that money-pit of a house years ago."

Oh, he would throw the house into her face, wouldn't he? Well, if he wasn't going to the solicitors, then his business would be with the bank. "What are you doing with the safety deposit box? You're not giving her any of Mum's things, are you?" Harry cried, aghast. "Oh, John, you can't!"

Her brother sighed and his voice grew tight. "Look, I wish you would just agree to meet Mary. You'd like her if you gave her a chance; I know you would."

Harry snarled derisively. Words failed her in the face of his obstinance.

"Anyway," John stubbornly persisted, "you need to get used to the idea of Mary being in my life. I wanted to tell you this in person, but I'm proposing to her on Friday."

Harry gasped with a sudden insight. That was why he was going to the bank in Winchester! "Not with Gran's ring? No, John, that's the only thing of value we have left of Mum's things. You can't give it away. You just can't!" She dropped heavily onto the bench outside the shop, her legs suddenly too weak to hold her.

"We agreed years ago, Harry." John's voice sounded strained and he spoke with the excessive patience that she knew meant he was on the edge of losing his temper. "You kept Mum's ring and I was to have Gran's. I'm offering it to Mary as an engagement ring, since I can't afford to buy her anything new."

Harry fought back the angry tears. "But . . . I gave Mum's ring to Clara when . . . . I don't have it anymore." She hated that her voice was cracking.

"I know you gave it to Clara. I was there, at your wedding." John's voice gentled into sympathy. "But, Harry, I also know she gave it back to you when she left. If you don't have it, it isn't because of Clara."

Harry covered her mouth to smother a sob. Yes, Clara had given it back—thrown it at her, actually, there in the London flat the army had arranged for them so that they could be near John while he was in hospital. Until that day, Clara had always forgiven Harry for everything—for the relapses, the filthy moods, the misunderstandings. But what Harry had done that day in hospital, Clara could not forgive. "I knew you had problems, but to be capable of this!" she had cried, tears coursing down her face. "If you won't get help, I can't watch you self-destruct anymore." And then she had walked out, and that was the end of a six-year marriage. Harry had picked the ring up off the floor and had taken it to the nearest pawn shop. She couldn't really remember anything after that for several, dark weeks.

"Look, I'll see you at lunch tomorrow and we'll talk about it," John was saying softly.

"Don't bother," Harry snapped. "Just take Gran's ring and go back to London. I don't want to see you." Gran's ring, Mum's ring, Mum herself, Clara—everything was gone. What did Harry have left but John? And now John was deserting her again, just as he had when he left home twenty years ago.

John sighed. "All right, have it your own way, then. I'll let you know what she says when I ask her." And he rung off.

Harry sat on the bench, gripping the seat on either side of her in both hands. Her fingernails dug into the green-painted boards as she tried to control her rage. How could he not see how foolishly and how rashly he was behaving over this chit of girl? He'd only been seeing her for six months! And now to give Gran's ring to her! Harry wondered if she would be able to sneak a few pulls from the flask she had hidden in her handbag without Annie seeing. She needed something to steady her nerves.

"'I'll let you know what she says. . . .'" Harry muttered John's last words to her sarcastically under her breath. She pulled up the picture John had sent her of his girlfriend and sneered at it. So young, so pretty, and so obviously predatory. And then she brightened. Mary Morstan wouldn't be in the least bit interested in marrying John, would she? This child was a cat on the prowl, playing with Harry's brother as if he were a catnip mouse. The bitch would eviscerate him, and then tire of her new toy and toss him aside. She would have no desire to make the relationship permanent, would she? With her whole life ahead of her, would she really want to tie herself to a broken-down, penniless old soldier? And then Harry remembered her own shock at seeing John's savagely damaged shoulder. She knew that no young woman would want to have to face such an ugly sight every day of her life. Mary Morstan would turn John's proposal down, and then he would know that Harry had been right all along! He would apologize for treating his sister so rudely and admit that all they had left in the world was each other.

Greatly cheered, Harry went back into the shop and served customers all day with more patience than she was normally able to muster. She even began work on a new painting during her lunch break—her precious willows with their fresh, green foliage stirring gently in a springtime breeze.

000

Three days later, her phone pinged and she opened the text from John. It read simply: "She said yes."

Harry, moving as if she were in a dream, took the next bus to Winchester, wandered into an off-licence, and bought a case of Jameson. She had to take a cab to return home.

000

To read about John's proposal to Mary, see "Dancing Around the Subject".

To read about Harry's reaction to John leaving home when he was eighteen, see Chapter 3 of "Chance Meetings."


	3. Chapter 3

She awoke slowly to a vague awareness of a throbbing head and the taste of death in her mouth with no notion of where or when she was. Opening her eyes, she tried to focus on her surroundings and gradually noted that a bright, noonday sun was shining through the window of her bedroom and that she was, in fact, in her own bed, dressed in her pyjamas and neatly tucked in.

Harry sighed. This could not be her own doing, she knew. Last thing she could remember, she was in Winchester mid-morning yesterday buying a case of Jameson and planning a good old binge. She ought to be sprawled on the carpet in the sitting room or slumped in an armchair, not safely in bed. This could only mean that John had found her out and had, once again, taken care of his big sister.

Was he here, then? She half hoped not. She did not want to face his disappointment in her, after he'd spent so much on her rehab. She was always letting him down, wasn't she? But then, he was always letting her down, too.

It took ages to sit herself up in bed. But there on the nightstand was a glass of water and some paracetamol. Gratefully she took two tablets and sipped at the water until the room stopped spinning and the pain behind her eyes subsided. Harry was unused to hangovers; her usual modus operandi was to drink shots all day, maintaining a pleasant buzz. John called it "self-medicating". Harry called it surviving. It was the rehab that had messed her up, obviously. John's idea—he was always trying to "fix" her. She tried vaguely to remember what had triggered this bought of binge-drinking, but soon gave it up as her headache protested the act of thought.

After some time, she finally felt ready to face whatever the day would bring. Pulling on her dressing gown and slippers, she wobbled to the top of the stair. And then Annie's voice drifted up into her hearing.

"Oh, no need to thank me, dear," the old woman was bleating gently. "I'm always glad to help my dear Clemmie's children. No, don't worry, love. I have things well in hand and Charlotte and Joe's been to help me."

Harry's temper flared. So John had not come himself, after all. Once again, he shirked his promise, depending on Annie and Annie's family to look after his sister rather than fulfil his own responsibilities. He knew Annie's love for Clementine Watson would drive her to care for her friend's daughter, relieving him of his unwanted burden.

" _Look after Harry, Johnny_ ," their mum had murmured to him just before succumbing to the cancer that had eaten away at her insides. " _Promise me, you'll look after her."_ It might have sounded strange, asking the younger sibling to take care of the older. But John had been looking after Harry since he was old enough to know what "looking after" meant. She would never forget him hurtling his sturdy little four-year-old body into the abdomen of a bully twice his size and pummelling his sister's tormenter with his tiny fists. Until, of course, the bigger boy had recovered from his surprise, tossed John across the schoolyard and then pounded him. Since that time, Harry had always depended on her little brother's courage and loyalty. Their mum had, too. " _Look after your sister,"_ she was always telling the boy. It was the prime directive of their childhood.

 _"_ _Look after Harry, Johnny,"_ were Mum's final words to her son. " _I will, mum, don't worry_ ," John had said. But John had only kept this promise when it suited him, hadn't he? Two years later, he'd run off with ridiculous pipe dreams of being an army surgeon, his own sister be damned! And see where his dreams had landed him!

But now Mum's best friend would have to be faced. Harry made her careful way down the stair and shuffled into the kitchen. There was Annie at the table, fluffy as ever, wrapped in a woolly shawl and knitting something soft and pink.

"There you are, dear," Annie smiled. "How are you feeling?"

Harry rolled her eyes. How did the silly old woman _think_ she was feeling? She dropped heavily into a kitchen chair. "What are you doing here?"

Annie had never reacted to Harry's ill moods, not in forty years. She quietly explained, "Your brother called me last night when you didn't answer your phone. That worried about you, he was. Charlotte and I found you in the loo, wrapped around the toilet bowl. Took her and Joe both to get you up those steps." She laid aside her knitting and rose from the table. "I'll put on the kettle, shall I?"

"If John was so worried, why didn't he come himself?" Harry griped ungraciously.

Annie switched the kettle on and put two slices of bread into the toaster. "He did what was best for you, as ever," she assured Harry soothingly. "Think, dear. What if you'd been seriously ill or badly injured? It would take him hours to get to you, wouldn't it? But Charlotte and I arrived in minutes after he called. If you'd needed help, you'd be glad to have received it the sooner, wouldn't you, dear? As it was, all you needed was a clean-up and your bed, and we could do that as well as John could have done."

But now Harry had moved on to another source of annoyance. "Why was he calling me, anyway, on a Saturday night? He never calls on a Saturday," she grumbled. If he'd only waited until Sunday, she'd have got up on her own and answered the phone and he'd be none the wiser about her weekend activities.

"My dear, he didn't call on Saturday. He called last night," Annie turned her mild eyes upon Harry patiently. Seeing Harry was all at sea, she added, "Today is Monday, love."

Monday? So she'd lost 48 hours, not just 24. And here was Annie, nursing her on a weekday and no doubt leaving the shop entirely in gossipy Charlotte's hands. And old Joe, her husband, the local pub owner, had been here, too! How humiliating! By now, everyone in village would know what Harry had done.

Annie made Harry's tea and spread butter on her toast. "There now, dear. Take things easy today and get your legs back under you," she murmured serenely. "I must get on to the shop. Charlotte's been there alone all morning without a break and she'll be wanting a bit of something to eat." Gathering her knitting into a satchel, she added, "I'll see you in the morning, dear. I've promised your brother you'll always have a place in my shop, but I can't pay you if you don't come into work." The elderly woman made this last pronouncement in exactly the same placid tone she would use to sooth crying babies or irate customers.

Harry frowned at the door her employer had closed quietly as she left. She had often tried to imagine Annie losing her patience, but could only conjure a picture of a gentle-faced sheep baaing and shaking its head mildly. And yet, this sheep was not easily cowed. Harry could remember a number of times when Annie had stood toe-to-toe with Dad, telling him in loving and peacefully modulated tones exactly what she thought of his neglectful behaviour. Hamish Watson had always hung his head and promised to mend his ways—and his reform could last as long as a week at a time.

Harry had adored her dad, who was warm and loving and always good for a laugh with his merry jests and practical jokes. But his need for excitement outweighed his sense of responsibility to his family. He found an outlet for his thrill-seeking addiction in motorcycles and fast cars, but as he grew older he more often spent his days drinking and gambling with strangers in bars. Never able to hold a job for long and never interested in keeping the house and garden in good shape, Harry's father had driven her mother into a quiet despair over the years. It had been no great surprise when he finally had driven into that tree and died.

John said that their father's behaviour was masking an untreated, clinical depression. But John was always trying to diagnose people, wasn't he? He was constantly nagging at Harry about "getting help" and claimed her alcohol use was some sort of "self-treatment". Physician, heal thyself, Harry always said! John was the one with the problems, him and his trick-cyclist! His adrenaline addiction was well-known to everyone—how was his behaviour any different from Dad's?

Of course, John had been right in diagnosing Mum, hadn't he? He begged and begged her to go to the doctor, but by the time she listened to him it was too late—the cancer was everywhere.

Harry sighed and rose to seek out a remedy for her hangover. Predictably, she found that every one of the bottles from her case of Jameson was empty, washed out thoroughly, and placed neatly in the recycling bin. Harry had no idea how many of those bottles had been put to good use and how many Annie had poured down the sink. There was no point looking in her hiding places. If she'd had any stashed away, she wouldn't have had to go to Winchester, would she? And all the bottles were accounted for—she'd not been sober enough to think to squirrel any away. Tea it would have to be, then. But by now, the tea was tepid and the toast was stone cold. Harry threw them away and dragged herself into the sitting room to find her phone.

Seven missed calls from John. Four unheard voice mails from John. Three unread texts from John. Were there no trains from London to Winchester all weekend that he couldn't manage to do more than use his phone? It was only a two- or three-hour journey, depending on which train one took. She ignored the voice mails, which would only be John shouting at her to answer the phone, and opened the text messages.

One from just a few minutes ago: _"Glad you're ok. Annie says you're all sorted. I'll see you Friday, then, yeah?"_

One from Sunday night: " _All right, then, I'm calling Annie to check on you, since you can't be arsed to answer the bloody phone. I can only assume you need immediate medical attention."_ He was fluent in sarcasm, even in when texting. He knew her only too well—Harry was too careful of herself to get hurt, even when she was totally pissed.

One from Saturday afternoon. " _I know you said you won't come to my birthday party, but Mary and I plan to officially announce our engagement then. I hope you'll change your mind and come. You can spend the night in Baker Street so that you don't have to take a night train."_ Harry froze, remembering why she'd been so upset. Her brother had got himself engaged to his lunatic fan club. Yes, that's exactly how she wanted to spend her Friday evening—pretending her little brother wasn't being an absolute fool and then spending the night in his dismal cell of a bedroom in the same flat as that awful Sherlock Holmes!

Then the one from Saturday morning. " _She said yes_." Harry stared at the message sombrely. How could the bitch have agreed to marry him? Her plan to use John must go even deeper than Harry had suspected. A divorce would be so much more devastating than a break-up to her poor brother. Harry began making plans to clean up the mess that this evil child would inevitably leave in her wake sometime in the future.

But what did the little tart _want?_ John didn't have anything worth marrying him for. Was it this house? It _did_ technically belong to John; he could do what he liked with it. Mum had left it to the two of them, but about ten years ago Harry had found herself in a financial bind and had tried to sell it. Of course, that tiresome estate agent had insisted on contacting the joint owner. John had called Harry immediately and demanded to know what the hell was going on!

" _We OWN your house, Harry. No mortgage, no rent. Where the bloody hell do you think you're going to live if you sell, hmm? There's no flat in Old Alresford that you can afford on your salary._ " John had been exasperated, but in the end he had emptied his savings and bought out her half of the house. As the owner, he allowed her to live there rent-free in order to avoid the difficulties of renting out to strangers. After all, it wasn't good for a house to sit empty, was it? He even sent her money every month for maintenance and up-keep expenses; he was a very conscientious home owner. When Harry was thinking clearly, she was aware that her brother was actually paying her to live in his house. But after all, it really was her house, too. She'd lived here all her life, and he'd only lived here for 18 years. Her claim was the longer one: forty years long!

And if that Mary Morstan wanted to get her mitts on it, Harry did not know what violence might ensue! The very thought made her livid!

Harry sat and stewed for quite some time and then at last rose to make herself a fresh cuppa and to boil an egg. She was just starting to feel better when the phone rang. An unknown number. Cautiously, she answered it anyway.

"Harry? My name's Mary. John's fiancée?" Harry's eyes grew wide and she nearly pitched her phone across the room in fury. The nerve of the little bitch!

"What the hell do _you_ want?" she ground out through gritted teeth.

The voice on the other end sounded so soft and sweet it made Harry's head ache. "I'm just so glad you're all right. John and I were terribly worried. How are you feeling?"

"If John was so worried, he should have come down himself," Harry grumbled.

"Oh, I know! We wanted to come, but we looked up the trains and it would have taken hours to get to you Sunday night. If you'd been hurt, we would have taken far too long to reach you. And then Annie said you were perfectly all right, thank God, and we needn't miss work today. We _will_ come down and see you soon, though. I can't wait to see where you and John grew up."

"What the hell do you WANT?" Harry demanded again, her voice rising to a scream.

A little chuckle. "Sorry, I didn't mean to go on and on. It's just, John told me he'd invited you to stay over on Baker Street after his birthday party and I thought that—well- that you might not like staying there overnight. It's none too clean and there's never anything in the fridge. And Sherlock can be a bit off-putting. But I have a nice spare bedroom in my flat where you can crash overnight. It's much more pleasant, and then we could get better acquainted."

Harry's vision went red. "John knows perfectly well that I abhor London. If he wants me to go to his bloody birthday party he can bloody-well have it here in his own hometown, can't he?" she snapped. "And I have no intention of getting to know you better. I know your kind! You got your hooks into my brother and you're going to drain the life out of him."

A moment of silence. "I understand. I do," Mary then said softly. "If I had a little brother, I'd be protective of him, too. If I had a brother like John, I imagine I'd never believe anyone was good enough for him. But Harry, I want you to know, I would never hurt John. Never, ever. I hope you can come to trust me one day."

Oh, she was good, this girl! No wonder John had so easily allowed the wool to be pulled over his eyes. Harry hung up, but she pulled up the picture of Mary Morstan that John had sent months before and glared at it for a long time.


	4. Chapter 4

This chapter takes places immediately after chapter four of "Red-Handed". If you have not read "Red-Handed", I recommend at least reading the first and fourth chapter of that story or Sherlock's and Mycroft's reactions here will not make much sense to you.

000

She stepped from the taxi and approached St. Mary's Hospital with trepidation. Turning her back on the front entrance, she rummaged in her bag for her flask and took a long, fortifying swallow. She was not ready to face this. Last time John was in hospital, she'd fallen completely apart. Rushed home from Afghanistan, his shoulder shattered by a sniper's bullet and his body ravaged by infection, her brother had been at death's door and Harry had been utterly terrified. At least that time, she had thought she had Clara's supporting presence. But Clara had deserted her after that first horrifying visit to John's bedside. Clara was gone. Mum was gone, Dad was gone. If Harry lost her little brother, too, she did not know how she could go on.

She finally forced herself to enter and made her way to the room number DI Lestrade had provided her on the phone. The DI had been very kind each time he had called, gently informing her that John had been stabbed in the back while on a case, explaining the surgical procedures he was undergoing, giving her updates on John's condition. It had taken her twenty-four hours to find the courage to go to the train station and buy a ticket to London, but now she was ready to stand by John's side as he recovered from his oh-so-nearly-fatal injury.

Looking through the observation window in the door to his room, she saw to her dismay that Mary Morstan was sitting on John's bed chatting amicably with another man. And she was smiling, that little minx! How dare she! Face like thunder, Harry approached the desk and addressed the ward sister who was sitting there.

"Excuse me, Nurse, I'm here to see my brother, Dr John Watson," she said, irritated. "Could you tell those people to leave his room? I've been on a train for ages and I want to see him immediately!" This was a slight prevarication. The train journey had been an hour and a half long at this time of day. But she needed to see John now!

"I'm sorry, miss," the ward sister began, but just at that moment the door to John's room opened and the tall, elegant man who had been visiting emerged. Closing the door gently behind him, his eyes found Harry's, registered mild interest, then slid past her to the nurse at the desk. As he stepped towards them, Harry mused that the man's immaculate suit probably cost more than she earned in a year.

"Nurse Pym," he began grandly with a glance at her name badge, "my name is Mycroft Holmes."

"Sherlock's brother?" Harry yipped in surprise before she could stop herself. He raised an irritated eyebrow at her, then continued addressing the ward sister.

"Dr Watson's well-being is of great interest to the British Government, which I represent. He will receive the best of care and will want for nothing. Anything he needs will be provided for. Send the bills to this address." He conjured a card, seemingly out of thin air, and presented it with a flourish. "I hope I am making myself clear."

Ms Pym looked at the card and her eyes grew wide. "Yes, sir, Mr Holmes!" she said, clearly impressed. "Ten Downing Street, yes, sir."

"Thank you," Mycroft Holmes inclined his head in a regal gesture and then turned to Harry. "Ms Watson," he acknowledged her with another courteous nod and then strode down the corridor to the lifts.

The nurse gave Harry an awestruck look. "Your brother is an important man, Ms Watson," she said respectfully. "I've heard that the queen herself reads his blog faithfully. You can go right in now. It's a two-visitor limit, but only Dr Watson's fiancée is with him now."

"Go and tell her to leave," Harry insisted, a whine in her voice. "I want to see my brother alone." Ms Pym hesitated. Harry raised her voice, "I insist you tell that woman to leave! I need to see my brother alone! Mr Holmes just told you to give him whatever he needs, and he _needs_ me!"

"But, Ms Watson, I can't ask Dr Morstan to leave," the nurse said uncertainly. "She's not only his fiancée; she's also his patient advocate and has medical power of attorney. She has every right to be there."

Harry's felt her heart catch fire in a flash of rage. " _I_ am his only living relation! He's _my_ brother! I'm all the family he has!" she fumed. "That woman needs to get out of _my_ brother's room!"

Ms Pym rose from her chair. "Miss, you must calm down or I'll have to ask you to leave," she stated firmly.

Harry felt a shock in all her limbs, as if she were about to explode. But before she could respond, the lift doors opened and there was Sherlock Holmes and DI Lestrade. She did NOT want to speak to that horrible Sherlock Holmes! Harry ducked around a corner before they could spot her.

Ms Pym's eyes followed Harry with a bit of alarm, but she greeted the new visitors with a relieved and welcoming smile. "Our patient is doing well, gentlemen," she said warmly. "Mr Holmes, I hope you got some rest this morning after your long night. And by the way, you just missed your brother."

Lestrade had lifted his hand in a friendly greeting and entered John's room, but Sherlock turned towards the desk. _Oh, don't come over here, don't!" Harry thought desperately._ But on he came anyway, and as she came into his line of sight, his eyes drilled into hers, cold and hard.

But he ignored her and addressed Nurse Pym. "My brother was here? Why?" he demanded suspiciously, looking annoyed.

Ms Pym smiled benevolently. John was clearly a favourite patient of hers already. Women always adored John, didn't they? Harry mused. Even when he was unconscious. "On behalf of our government, he wanted to ensure that Dr Watson has everything he needs, and said the bills were to be sent to him," she explained, obviously please her patient was to be well-provided for.

"Oh," Sherlock muttered, his irritation brought up short. "Well, good, then. That's . . . good." He then finally turned his attention to Harry.

"Welcome to London," he said, sarcasm dripping from every syllable. "So glad you could make it. At your convenience."

Harry was vibrating with impatience. "Yes, and I want to see John immediately," she snapped. "I would thank you to go and get those people out of MY brother's room."

Sherlock was deliberately slow in answering, looking her up and down as if she were a lab specimen. At last he replied, "You've waited this long to come to his side. You can wait a few minutes more, until Detective Inspector Lestrade has had time to greet his friend."

A heated flush burned Harry's neck and rose to her cheeks. "I came as soon as I was able—not that it's any of your business," she spat out through gritted teeth.

"Let's consider, shall we?" Sherlock challenged back in a mocking voice and then began rattling off a litany at lightning speed. "DI Lestrade telephoned you yesterday at 10 a.m., immediately upon our arrival here, and informed you that your brother had been stabbed, perhaps fatally, in the back and had been rushed into surgery. Two hours later, assuming you were on your way to London, he called again to ask if he could send a car to pick you up at the train station. Surprised to find that you had not yet left your home, he asked you to inform him when you'd made your arrangements as he wished to afford you every courtesy in helping you to come to his friend, John's, side. Four hours after that, concerned that he had not yet heard from you, he called to inform you that your brother had come through surgery successfully and was in recovery. He was amazed to find that you _still_ had not departed from Old Alresford. Again he phoned you when John was brought to this room—again, you had remained ensconced in your own home. When you had still not arrived this morning, he called you once more to find you even than had not made arrangements to come to visit your brother." Sherlock stopped abruptly and turned those strange, penetrating eyes upon her. "It's a two-hour train journey at most, with a half-hour wait at most during daylight hours, and yet you took over twenty-six hours to arrive. You can wait a few more minutes for the man who helped to save John's life, and who has been diligently watching over his best interests, to speak with him."

Mortified, Harry opened her mouth to retort, but John's door opened at that moment and the detective inspector himself stepped outside accompanied by Mary Morstan.

"I'm all right, though, Greg. I don't want to leave him," Mary was saying anxiously. Her blond hair was dishevelled and her eyes red-rimmed. "I can rest better when I'm near him."

"You're exhausted, Mary," the DI insisted, his voice gruff with weariness himself and his handsome face clouded with concern. "You've not left his room since he was brought here. You need a break, some sleep, some decent food." At her continued resistance, he added gently, "He's going to need you, darlin', when he comes home. He's going to need you to be strong for him. You have to look after yourself or you'll not be up to the job, yeah? Let me take you home."

Mary nodded wearily and submitted to being led down the corridor to the lifts. Harry let out a little sigh of relief. She hadn't been seen. And now, John was alone at last. She marched towards his room with purposeful steps. But Sherlock was right beside her.

"I want to see him _alone_ ," she told him, her voice coming out in a whine. "He's _my_ brother and I have the right to see him alone."

"No," said Sherlock Holmes firmly.

Harry's temper flared again. "You can't tell me I can't see him! It's your fault he was hurt in the first place! If he didn't live with you and follow you around like a puppy, he'd be safe at home with me! He'd never have been hurt if it weren't for you!" Seeing her words were hitting her mark, she raised her voice. "Damn you! This is your fault and no one else's! You're no better than a murderer!"

Sherlock looked stricken, his face growing even paler than usual. "Yes, I am aware," he said quietly, his eyes dark with pain and grief. She was amazed to see that his lip trembled a bit. "Nevertheless, I won't let you in there unsupervised."

Harry saw red! The nerve of the man! He had been rude to her since he arrived, but this was the last straw! She stamped her foot impatiently and shrieked, "You have no right to tell me what to do! He's MY brother, not yours! You have no rights whatsoever!"

"Miss Watson, I will have security remove you if you cannot keep control of yourself," Ms Pym intervened swiftly and sternly. Harry turned on her, wanting to tear the woman's eyes out!

But, "May we have someplace to . . . speak in private, Sister Pym?" Sherlock said quietly before Harry could react.

The ward sister looked uncertain, but seemingly against her will showed them to an empty consultation room and shut them in.

As soon as they were alone, Harry lashed out with both fists and struck her adversary in the chest. "You have NO RIGHT. . . ." she began, infuriated.

He grasped both of her fists in his hands and easily subdued her attack, calmly holding her still as he spoke quietly but vehemently. "I have every right and every responsibility, as his friend, to protect him. After what transpired the last time you were left alone in a hospital room with John, I will not allow you to visit him unsupervised."

Harry felt all the blood drain from her head. Her legs went wobbly and she found herself dropping heavily into the nearest chair. Still, she was proud that her voice remained strong and steady. "So you've been chatting with Clara, have you? Whatever she said to you, she was wrong about what happened. She didn't understand."

Sherlock rolled his eyes impatiently. "I've never met Clara, nor have I ever spoken to her. She moved away to Dublin, didn't she, soon after John was released from hospital—as soon as he no longer needed her help. No, I pieced together the truth from bits he's told me about that time."

Now she felt a coldness in the pit of her stomach. What did John know about that day? "You're lying," she hissed. "You don't know shite!"

"I know that John was puzzled that you never came to visit him once the entire time he was in hospital, nor whilst he was in rehab, even though Clara came faithfully every day at first, and then whenever she could get off work. He said that after a good deal of questioning, she admitted that you had come the first day he arrived in England, while he was still unconscious, but that you had been too traumatized by the sight of him to feel able to return."

"You don't know what it was like!" Harry exclaimed defensively. "John was always the strong one, the responsible one. To see him lying there, pale as death, utterly helpless and in such pain. . . . It was unbearable! I couldn't handle it. John understands that. We've talked about it since. He knows I have a delicate nature."

Sherlock's eyes were filled with contempt. He ignored her outburst and continued. "He also found it curious to discover that you and Clara ended your relationship the same day as that one visit. It made no sense to him: Clara had always had the greatest patience with your moods, your drinking problem, your severe personality disorder. He couldn't think why she would suddenly leave you and she never explained. It is plain to me, however, that her reason must have had to do with that one visit you made to John."

Almost too infuriated to speak, Harry managed a strangled growl in reply: "You don't know anything! You're making things up!"

Sherlock was inexorable. "Did I invent the fact that Clara clearly left you after that hospital visit? When John was strong enough, he questioned the ward sister on his floor, and she recalled that a woman of your description had to be bodily removed from his room that day, screaming and struggling, and was deposited outside by security. Would you like to explain what happened that day?"

The coldness in Harry's insides now spread throughout her body. She spoke desperately now, pleading with him. "Clara didn't understand. You don't understand, either. He was in such pain. So much pain. And the doctor said he might suffer pain the rest of his life. Or he might lose the use of his arm. Or he might just die! I couldn't bear it, I tell you! I couldn't stand to watch him die in such agony, helpless and useless. . . ."

Sherlock's relentlessly piercing eyes bore into her; his cold anger was electrifying. "And so you decided to disconnect the machine that was managing his morphine dosages, thereby ensuring that his pain was truly unbearable to _him!_ " he accused.

Harry gasped. Her chest ached with the turmoil of this confrontation. She began to sob. "How was I to know? The stupid machines don't have labels, do they? How was I to know that's what the machine was for?" she mewled defensively.

"Of course, you didn't know," Sherlock snapped, relentless. "Because you were _trying_ to disconnect his _life support!"_

"He's my brother!" Harry insisted, whimpering in the face of his fury. "I'm all the family he has! I had to make the decision for him. He wouldn't have wanted to go on that way. I know him—he wouldn't have wanted to live a life in constant pain. He wouldn't have wanted to live after losing his ability to do his job. He couldn't make that decision, so I had to do it for him!"

"You had NO RIGHT!" Sherlock roared at her, losing all vestige of composure at last. Harry gave a little shriek and tried to scoot her chair away from him in sudden terror. "You had _no right_ to take his life!"

It was the argument with Clara all over again! Harry felt her heart exploding in her chest. Why couldn't anyone understand? She covered her face and wailed.

In the meantime, Sherlock was gathering himself again. Regaining his calm, he continued, "I happen to know that John's last thought when he was shot, when he thought he was dying, was 'Please, God, let me live.' So as I say, you had no right to make the decision to take his life away."

Harry froze and raised her head to meet his eyes. "I didn't know that. How . . . how do you know that?" she whispered.

"He told me that himself, the day after we first met. And he was right to want to live. Life is precious. _His_ life is precious, and would be even if he were no longer of any use to his sister." He turned his back in disgust and walked towards the door as if to leave her. Surrealistically, she saw in her mind's eye the image of Clara leaving her in just this way; and suddenly, finally, she understood why.

"Wait!" Harry rose from the chair, inexplicably longing for absolution from this man. "I never meant. . . I didn't think of it as _killing_ him. I thought . . . I just wanted to . . . ."

"Put him out of his misery? Or put him out of _your_ misery?" Sherlock drawled sarcastically. He whirled back around to face her. "Whatever you meant, it was idiotic. Whatever you disconnected, an alarm would have gone off alerting the staff and the matter would have been quickly resolved with little harm done. There are safeguards in place in case of accidents. However, that was not necessary, since Clara walked into the room and caught you in the act, didn't she? John was, in fact, never in any real danger from you. Nevertheless, I would be grossly negligent to allow you to be alone with him for even a moment, given your impetuous and utterly narcissistic nature."

Harry rushed to him, grasping his arm in supplication. "Please," she begged. "Don't tell John what I did! Please!"

Sherlock rolled his eyes again. "I'm sure there's no need. John is no fool. He had possession of the same facts I used to deduce what happened—and he had the additional input of Clara's expressions and tone of voice as he tried to find the truth. He can put two and two together. You can assume that he already knows everything."

She began to wail again, sobbing against his shoulder as he looked at her with revulsion. "No wonder he hates me! He hardly ever comes to see me! It's because he knows, isn't it? He'll never forgive me, will he? Oh, god, I wish I were dead!"

"Harry," Sherlock said impatiently, but using her name for the first time and putting a hand on her shoulder, "John has a temper—no one knows this better than I do. But at his core, he has the most forgiving nature of anyone I've ever known. I do not believe he is capable of holding onto unforgiveness towards anyone he cares about for any great length of time. I should know," he added, his voice growing hoarse with sudden emotion, "he's forgiven me time and again, and for things that perhaps he should not have forgiven."

She tipped her head back and looked up at him in amazement. Sherlock Holmes had tears in his eyes. He looked away from her with a gesture of impatience and opened the door.

"You can be sure," he added as he led her down the corridor back to John's room, "that John's new reluctance to rush to your rescue has nothing to do with you. Your brother is also a first-class enabler. He is very aware of that fact and is attempting to correct this perceived flaw in his character. Much to my chagrin, I must say: he has so often enabled _me_ to do all sorts of outrageous things." He looked back at her with an almost mischievous smile.

"Will you. . . will you let me have a moment alone with him, then?" Harry asked breathlessly, wiping her face with a sodden sleeve.

"No," said Sherlock Holmes ruthlessly, and held the door for her.

They entered the darkened room together, hushed and repentant in the presence of one from whom they both craved absolution. He lay on his side, back swathed in bandages, and the machines bleeped rhythmically with his heart. He seemed to be sleeping peacefully.

"He's always looked after me. Always," Harry whispered, gazing in dismay at her little brother. "I don't know how to look after _him_."

"He has plenty of people who love him who'll look after him," Sherlock rumbled softly in reply. "Myself and Mary chief amongst them. You will help him best now by learning to look after yourself and give him one less thing to worry about."

Blue eyes opened and John looked around blearily.

His searching gaze found his best friend first. "Hey, Sherlock. Get some sleep?" he murmured fondly.

"Yes, mother," Sherlock griped, but his voice was warm with affection.

Then John noticed Harry. He held out his hand to her and smiled. "Hey, Harry. You okay?" he asked in concern.

Harry sank down by his bedside, hid her face in his blankets, and wept.

000

Humble thanks to my beta Wynsom and my Brit-picker mrspencil, who helped me out when they certainly had better things to do!


	5. Chapter 5

This chapter takes place the day after John and Mary's wedding. For an account of the wedding itself, see "When Mary Changed Her Mind", in which you will glimpse just how much influence Harry has over her brother's opinion of himself. Also see the second chapter of "To Hold Her Heart" to find out about the "entertainment" provided at the wedding reception. And for a peek into the Watsons' honeymoon, as well as an inkling of why they were made for each other, read "A Dream of Rain."

000

Harry spent the evening before John's wedding getting completely legless while listening to old CD's playing maudlin American blues ballads. Her own wedding had been such a joyous affair, and John had flown all the way back from Iraq for it and had seemed so pleased for her; and Clara had been so lovely and happy; and Harry had been sober for six long months by that time and had actually felt pleased and lovely and happy, too, for the first time since her dad had died.

But it hadn't lasted, had it? Because nothing good lasts in this life for a Watson. Mum had lost Dad, hadn't she, at such a young age? Harry and John were still in their teens when they lost their parents. Harry had lost Clara to a moment of utter madness after only six years. And John—well, hadn't he lost every girl he'd ever dated? Why did he believe this would last? She had said as much to him earlier that day when he called to ask her once again to come with Annie, Joe, and Charlotte to his wedding.

"Why should I come and watch my brother make a fool of himself over a girl half his age?" she had demanded impatiently. "She's a young, beautiful, and apparently intelligent child according to you—why should she throw her life away on a broken-down old soldier whose best years are behind him? She thinks she's in love with you now, but you know it's just a romantic crush on a public figure. She'll leave you sooner or later, just like everyone else always does. Please, John, don't put yourself through hell like I did! Drop the silly little bitch now before it's too late!"

And John had sighed and said, "Have it your own way, then, Harry. We'll be three weeks in the Med for our honeymoon, but I'll call you after we get back."

That should have been that. But then Harry had called Mary.

She had saved the number from when Mary had called her, and now in a last ditch effort to save her little brother from heartbreak and legal entanglement and alimony and public humiliation, she used it. And she lost her temper and called the little slag a number of unpleasant names and made quite a few threats.

"I'm so sorry you feel that way, dear," Mary had said, sounding so genuinely sad that Harry could almost have believed she really was as gracious as she seemed to be. "I do hope that once we get to know each other, you will think better of me. I promise you, though, that I'm not going anywhere. I will never leave John and I will never hurt him. Never, ever."

Unfortunately, John had been with Mary when Harry called and had overheard Harry's perhaps excessively loud tirade. He had taken the phone from his bride-to-be and let loose a stern censure of his own.

"You can say anything you like to me, Harry," he told her firmly, "but I will not allow you to abuse Mary in any way. Until you've decided to be civil to her and accept her as my wife, I have nothing further to say to you. It's up to you." And with that, he rang off.

John had always forgiven her for things, no matter how angry he was. He had forgiven her for trying to sell the house behind his back and for wasting his money on useless rehab and for never answering his letters while he was in the army and for never visiting him in hospital. He had even apparently, forgiven her for trying to take his life. But she had crossed a line at last, it seemed. He would not forgive her for shouting at his precious Mary.

000

Harry spent her brother's wedding day curled up in bed with a hangover and her own dark thoughts. Her conversation with Sherlock six weeks earlier had weighed greatly on her mind. However much she had told herself that she had been acting for her brother's own good that horrible day when he had arrived home from the war, she knew deep down that she had just lost her mind and acted on impulse alone. She had never allowed herself to think about it afterwards, but Sherlock had forced her to face the facts: if she had succeeded in disconnecting John's life support, she would not have spared him from a life of useless misery as she had thought to do. He would have just been dead, instead of recovering spectacularly and going on to forge a wonderful new life for himself as he had done. She had not had enough faith in him.

While her brother's wedding ceremony was being conducted, Harry sat alone in her little house and pondered all that had happened in the days after John had been stabbed and tried to understand what all it meant. She had stayed in London for a week, Sherlock's accusation ringing in her ears the entire time, while John was still in hospital. She connived always to avoid running into Mary. However, _someone_ was always with John; she was never alone with him. And on that last day, she had approached the room to hear DI Lestrade's distinctive, gravelly, compassionate voice saying,

"Must've been damned difficult, growing up with a mentally ill sister."

And Harry had frozen in place just outside the open door, out of their line of sight, unable not to listen.

Thus she heard John's quiet reply, "She wasn't always like this, you know. I mean, she's been anxious since I can remember—she'd be paralyzed with fright sometimes or would melt down into a panic attack. Most of the time, though, I remember her being sweet, fun to play games with, and always drawn to beautiful things. But then my dad was killed when she was ten and she went a bit mad. Needed to feel in control of everything after that." His voice was strained, still weak from his wound and the infection he'd been fighting off all that week.

Lestrade made sympathetic noises and offered his friend some water.

"Looking back now, though," her brother went on thoughtfully after a few moments, "I realize that the narcissistic tendencies were always there. One just doesn't notice them in a child."

The DI chuckled pleasantly. "All the little monsters think the world revolves 'round them, yeah?" he agreed.

John hmm'ed and went on. "So maybe it just became more noticeable then, I don't know. I was only eight at the time."

"Did your mum try to get help for her?"

"Not that I know of. But this is all me looking back on it, you know. At the time, I was only a kid, and it was just the way things were. One doesn't question things that seem normal to you. I suppose it just seemed normal to Mum, too. Harry had been that way her whole life—just a personality trait as far as anyone who'd always known her was concerned. Then, after Mum died, Harry lost the plot entirely for a while. But I was only sixteen—had no idea how to help her. I just kept doing what Mum always did: anything to keep the peace. Sherlock says I'm a classic enabler."

Lestrade laughter bubbled over. "No kidding! Even I worked that one out, mate!" he said affectionately. "But now that you know better, I suppose you've tried to get her the help she needs."

John sighed his patented sigh. "She doesn't believe she needs psychotherapy. And I can't make her go against her will. Clara tried, too—her wife, you know—with no more success than I. So she self-medicates with alcohol and actually functions pretty well most of the time. Her art calms her and gives her focus. She managed all right all the while I was in the army and things stayed pretty much the same for years on end. But any change in her life puts her into a right tail-spin. My getting shot and Clara leaving her set her back a lot. And now that I'm getting married. . . ."

At this point, Harry had walked away from the door. She had gone to the station and got on a train and fled to her lovely little yellow cottage and had not seen John again. But distance and drink could not drown out his words.

Of course, he'd mentioned psychotherapy to her a great many times over the years, but she'd always taken it as a pointless insult. Hearing him talk of it in solemn tones to his friend as if it were reasonable seemed entirely different, as if it were really a valid option.

000

The day after the wedding, Harry got up and dressed and had a light breakfast and headed off to work. Life as usual. She would just go on with life as usual. She wouldn't let it matter that John wasn't speaking to her anymore. This would be like when John was stationed overseas for years at a time—she had done all right then and she would do all right now. The only difference would be that she would no longer receive letters or phone calls from him. She still had her home and her art and her job, and she would be fine. She stopped as she passed by her beloved willow trees and let her fingers gently run over the light green leaves. As long as the willows were here, she would be fine, wouldn't she?

"Ooo, Harry, you ought to have gone with us to the wedding!" was Harry's greeting when she arrived at the shop. Charlotte looked exactly like her mother had looked thirty years ago—just as fluffy and plain and sheeplike, but with short brown curls instead of white; however, she had her father's outgoing personality. "It was so much fun! In a lovely park, it was, and the reception was ever so exciting!"

"Weddings are always boring," Harry said sullenly. "Even my own wedding was boring. Yours was especially dull, Charlotte—all the usual nonsense for hours on end."

Annie's daughter and Harry had grown up together almost as sisters. Harry supposed the woman was as close to a best friend as she'd ever had, slow-witted though she was. Astoundingly, Charlotte had always found Harry's barbed tongue amusing and persisted in believing that her friend was saying these things in jest. Accordingly, she laughed at Harry's insult, her curls bobbing jovially.

"Quite right, you are. All the droning on and on, talk, talk, talk," Charlotte agreed good-naturedly. "But John's wedding ceremony was short and sweet, weren't it, Mum?"

"Very minimal," Annie nodded. "To the point. The reception was a simple picnic on the grass. So novel, but quite lovely. And Mary was a radiant bride. I've never seen our John so happy in all his life, the dear boy."

Harry frowned. "Happy _now_ , of course. But you know how it always goes for him, don't you? Women adore him initially, but they always get tired of being second-place to his work," she sneered "She'll get fed up and leave soon enough, and _our_ John will be broken-hearted." _Our John_ , indeed. What did they know of _her_ brother?

"Oh, but I don't think so, Harry!" Charlotte exclaimed. "She seems to be as interested in John's work as John is. There were some pickpockets in the park during the reception, and John and Sherlock took off chasing them—and there went little Mary, kicking off her shoes and racing after them, wedding dress notwithstanding, and a great smile on her face."

Annie chuckled mildly. "A bit of unusual entertainment for a wedding, but seemed fitting in their case. The area they were using for the reception was marked off in crime-scene tape, it was. So amusing."

Charlotte was enraptured by her own tale. "Back they came at last, the men dripping wet and muddy from going into the lake, and Mary covered with grass stains and her stockings all torn. And they were laughing together. John told me that Mary had knocked one of the pickpockets over and bloodied his nose for him. Not afraid of anything, our Mary."

So, _our Mary_ , it was now, was it? "I'm going to organize a bit in the stock room, shall I?" Harry said abruptly and went through the door in the back of the shop.

The stockroom doubled as a break area, and Harry switched on the kettle and made herself a cuppa to steady her nerves. Life as usual might not be as easy to slip back into as she'd thought—not with Charlotte and Annie so enamoured of John's new wife. She sorted through paintings and unpacked some boxes and tried to keep John's words out of her mind.

 _"_ _She doesn't believe she needs psychotherapy. . . .she self-medicates with alcohol and actually functions pretty well most of the time. . . .But any change in her life puts her into a right tail-spin. . . ."_

The bell on the door tinkled and a familiar voice in the shop snapped Harry back into the present. "Hello, Annie. Hello, Char," a soft, Irish lilt wafted gently through the stockroom door.

"Clara, my dear. Fancy seeing you two days in a row. Come in, come in, love," Annie said warmly.

"Is Harry here?" It was the first time Harry had heard Clara's voice in two years. She had not seen her spouse since Clara had gone back to her childhood home in Dublin, right after John had been released from the hospital. They texted back and forth constantly, but phone calls and visits had never been considered. Neither had divorce. Their relationship was difficult to define.

"In the back," blabbed Charlotte, the traitor. "Go on, you know this shop as well as we do, eh? Good to have you back in the village!"

And so through the door slipped Clara, her black hair streaked with grey, her violet eyes flashing at Harry from under long, dark lashes. "Hello, Ree," she said, just as if she'd never left. "I'd hoped to see you at the wedding."

"And I told you not to go to the wedding," Harry retorted. "You know full well how this will all end."

"How could I not go to our lovely John's wedding?" Clara asked softly in her familiar, reasonable tone. "Been like a brother to me, he has, and he's one of my oldest friends. I'd not have got through uni but for him, and he's always been nothing but kind to me."

"I think you love him more than you love me," Harry muttered resentfully.

"Not more, Ree love, just longer," Clara's eyes laughed although her voice remained serious. "And he's a big boy, our John. He can take care of himself, you know he can."

She looked around at the paintings and drawings that hung on the walls of the stock room, waiting their turn for display in the shop. "There's the Ree I fell in love with, there. The girl who sees such beauty in the world and captures it so perfectly." She stopped at a version of the willows and reached up to touch it gently with reverent fingertips. "Remember all the picnics we had under those trees, Ree? The best times of my life were spent there."

"You're the one who left," Harry reminded her bitterly. "You're the one who ran away."

"I did," Clara nodded soberly. "I couldn't bear it, seeing you the way you were. Mood swings and alcohol I could manage—I knew all that about you when I married you. But the person you became when poor John was hurt. . . . I hadn't seen that side of you before. I couldn't bear to watch you self-destruct. You wouldn't get help for yourself, and I didn't know what else to do but leave. But you know I've missed you. I've told you that every day."

"What do you want?" Harry cried impatiently. "Why did you come here? Did John send you?"

Clara smiled wistfully. "I just told you I've missed you. I'd hoped to see you yesterday, but as you didn't come to the wedding I didn't want to go back to Dublin without seeing how you are."

"Well, I'm fine!" Harry snapped defiantly. "I didn't self-destruct after all, did I?"

"You didn't," Clara said fondly. "You're a strong, stubborn woman, Ree. As stubborn as any Watson. And I know you would never have really harmed our John; not if you were in your right mind. But you need to get help, you do. Come to Dublin with me, Ree."

Harry scoffed. "Dublin! Why would I do that?"

"This place," Clara swept her hand to indicate all of Old Alresford. "It's the village of enablers, it is. They all know you, they all look after you. You need a change. There's a centre I found near the surgery where I work. They have drug and alcohol rehab coupled with psychotherapy. You can live there for up to a year; then it's outpatient for as long as you need it. I could visit you as often as you like, and then you could live with me when you get out."

Six weeks ago, Harry would have found Clara's suggestion infuriating, patronizing, and utterly wrong. Today, she found herself listening in spite of herself. "Why would I want to do that?" she asked again, but without her usual fire.

"Just think about it, so," Clara said simply. "Say, I have to catch the train in a few hours. I'm due back at work tomorrow. Let's go get Joe to make us up a picnic lunch and we'll sit under our willow trees, for a lark."

Harry hesitated. It sounded tempting.

"Come on, for old time's sake," Clara coaxed.

Harry went.


	6. Chapter 6

For other perspectives of the events of this chapter, see "John and Mary Have a Tiff" and "The Empty Room". Many thanks to my beta Wynsom and my Brit picker mrspencil for their invaluable help.

000

The door slammed shut after John, who had flown through it at a desperate run into the night without so much as a goodbye. Harry sat on Clara's couch, staring after him in a stunned silence, barely able to breathe from the shock of the swift turn of events.

"What's happened?" Clara appeared, stumbling down the stairs and rubbing sleep from her eyes. She'd gone to bed hours earlier, leaving Harry and John to chat alone until the wee hours. "Such a bloody great din, I heard." She opened the front door and looked into the dark, quiet, wintry streets of Dublin as if to find the answers out there.

"He's gone," Harry told her bleakly. "Mary's in hospital and he's rushed back to London in a panic. He didn't even pack or anything. A car came to take him to the airport."

"Mary's in hospital? Oh, dear Lord, is it the baby, then?" Clara gasped in sudden anguish and sat down hard on the sofa.

Harry couldn't say the words, but she gave short nod and looked down. "Nothing good lasts in this life for a Watson," she muttered bitterly.

"Twelve weeks along, John said she was. Ah, the poor child." Tears spilled over Clara's cheeks and she covered her eyes with her hands. "Oh, our dear, lovely John."

"He was so angry," Harry said miserably. "So angry that he wasn't with her. So angry." Her face crumpled into grief and she began to sob. "He'll never forgive me for taking him away from her side. He'll never forgive me this time."

"Aw, Ree," Clara said gently, and slid over closer to Harry, slipping an arm around her and squeezing her tightly. "You're feeling sad, as you should, but that isn't the reason, is it?"

Harry frowned. She always assumed that any emotion she felt had to do with herself. But Clara persisted in believing otherwise.

"Our John may have lost his child," Clara continued in her soothing voice, rocking a bit. "We may have lost a wee niece or nephew. It's a hard thing to face. But we'll deal with it together, so."

But Harry was unable to think about it. Each time she tried, her thoughts sprang away like the opposite poles of a magnet. Instead her mind turned to the reason she was at Clara's house in the first place, and why John had been apart from his wife at this crucial moment.

000

 _It had taken Harry six months to even begin to consider Clara's proposal. For the longest time, she could not think about it without her brain freezing up entirely. Then, as the idea slowly trickled through the permafrost, she would suffer violent panic attacks. Leaving Old Alresford, her little yellow cottage, her beloved willow trees, her familiar life, was unthinkable to her._

 _Clara texted Harry every day. "A few years of treatment, and then we'll move back to Old Alresford together, if you like. Just think about it, so," she encouraged again and again._

" _Don't worry about the cottage, dear," placid Annie would often say, obviously in on the plot to get Harry to go to Dublin. "Joe and I will look after it for you. When you come home, it will be waiting for you, same as always."_

" _Think of all the new things you could put onto canvas!" Charlotte would exclaim exuberantly. "Oh, imagine the lovely paintings you could work on!"_

 _And during all that time, John never called her._

 _No one had told him about Clara's idea, at Harry's request. She didn't need him urging her along. She was afraid he would insist on sending her away, relieved to wash his hands of her. He was waiting for her to call him, she knew, to tell him she could accept his new wife as a part of his life now. But she could not bring herself to do it. Watson stubbornness was working both ways throughout those six long months._

 _By the end of November, Harry could stand it no longer. Her birthday was a week away, and Christmas was coming. She needed her brother. She needed him to help her think. She needed him to care about her again. And so she swallowed her pride and she phoned Mary._

 _Mary had been calling her periodically all along. Unlike John, whose calls had been as predictable as the calendar, she was completely random in the times she picked up the phone. Whenever something interesting happened, Mary would call and tell Harry about it. Sometimes Harry remained cold and distant during the conversations, and sometimes she attacked her sister-in-law with venom. But Mary remained unperturbed and just kept calling. "You'd be proud of your brother today," she might say. "He and Sherlock just broke up a huge drug cartel." Or, "You ought to have seen John last night. He got cut in a knife fight and sutured himself up, as if he thought I wouldn't notice!"_

 _And now, in her desperation, Harry picked up her phone and called Mary. She had meant to strong-arm her sister-in-law into making John come to visit. But instead, Harry had horrified herself by being utterly pathetic. She was sure she said nothing coherent at all—she just blubbered. And all the time, Mary was saying soothing, sympathetic things that Harry could not take in._

 _And then she heard Mary say, "Don't worry. I'll bring him 'round."_

" _You will?" Harry sobbed, incredulous._

" _Oh, yeah," said Mary confidently. "Or, at least, I'll do my best. He's the very definition of stubborn, you know."_

 _And sure enough, the next week, John had come to Old Alresford to celebrate Harry's birthday. She had explained to him about the rehab centre in Dublin, and before she knew it, plans were being made. Just as he had always done, he rescued her and helped her find her way._

 _She had gone to visit Clara at Christmas and stayed a week, to get a feel for the place. A month later, John had come to help her pack her things and ship them off to Ireland. Together, they had flown to Dublin and he had spent the day (was it only yesterday?) calming her down and getting her settled. Tomorrow, the first of February, she would enter the rehab centre and start working towards a new life. But today. . . ._

 _Yesterday, at tea time, John had revealed to Harry and Clara his incredible news about the baby. He was absolutely glowing with joy as he explained what a miracle it was—Mary had been considered infertile, but somehow this blessed surprise had come to them. Clara had been over the moon with excitement, already making plans to knit piles of wee socks and hats and fully intending to spoil the child completely rotten._

 _Harry had been stunned. She had never wavered from the certainty that Mary would eventually leave John and be out of their lives completely, forever. But if Mary and John had a baby together, even if Mary left, she would never truly be out of John's life. John would take his responsibilities as a father very seriously. Mary might leave him, but he would always strive to be a part of his child's life._

 _But would that really be so bad? She pictured a soft, tiny baby, with blonde curls and blue, blue eyes; her own tiny, John-like niece or nephew. What would it be like to hold it and cuddle it and love it? Would it love her in return? A warmth had spread through her which eventually burst into a tentative happiness. A baby to love. This was something she'd never even dreamed of._

 _000_

Now Harry allowed herself to understand what Clara had meant about why she was sad. The sense of loss grew slowly until it overwhelmed her. The two women held each other and grieved together while the sun of a new day rose slowly over Dublin.

000

"Go on, now. You can do this, Lovely," Clara encouraged Harry to get out of the cab. Harry looked out at the ordinary-looking block of flats hesitantly. Her brother lived here now. Her brother and the woman he had married almost nine months ago. The sister-in-law Harry had never yet met in person. She had never even called the girl by her proper name aloud before today.

"Come in with me," Harry begged, feeling panicked. "What if she throws me out? Then I'll be out here in the cold, all alone."

"She'll be pleased to see you, I promise you," Clara assured her. "A lovely girl, she is. When you meet her, you'll see why our John has pledged his life to her."

A week had passed since John had rushed home to his Mary's side. Harry had delayed her entry in to rehab, but it had taken this long to work up the courage to fly to London and do what needed to be done.

"I'll come back in an hour," Clara promised. "But you need time to talk to her alone. We agreed, didn't we? It's important to both of you."

Harry sighed and exited the cab. Slowly, she dragged herself up the stairs to her brother's flat. And she knocked on the door.

"Harry?" There stood John's Mary, pale and sombre, blonde hair mussy, still in a dressing gown and slippers. "This is a surprise! Come in, dear." And she ushered Harry into the sitting room to a chair before a crackling fire. There they sat in silence for a moment, staring at each other.

"John isn't home," Mary ventured at last.

"I know," Harry replied. "I . . . I came to see you. To tell you . . . to tell you I'm sorry."

Mary smiled sadly. "Thank you. It's been a great blow." She ran her hand over her stomach briefly, looking down. "I think I might have made a good mother. And I know John would have been a perfect father, don't you think?"

Harry nodded. "Yes, he would. And. . . and what a beautiful child it would have been." She had actually been trying to apologize for her behaviour, but felt this turn of conversation was just as well.

"Of course, John's rather made for that sort of thing- looking after people. It's what he's best at. His mission in life," Mary continued. "That's where he is now, in fact, watching Sherlock's back, making sure he's okay."

"Sherlock hates me!" Harry burst out, quite without meaning to.

Mary's wise eyes looked at her shrewdly, and suddenly Harry was aware that John's wife knew all about the life-support incident.

"He probably does," Mary agreed frankly. "He's very protective of John. He would have my head on a platter without a moment's thought if he believed I was going to hurt John in any way." Blue eyes glinted mischievously. "He could, too. He has a scimitar he keeps in the closet. Says he won it in a fight."

Harry's own blue eyes grew wide with alarm before she realized that Mary was gently teasing her.

Mary chuckled. "I'm joking, dear. Sherlock would be infuriated if anyone tried to harm either of us. We both belong to John, you see, and Sherlock has John's back as much as John has Sherlock's."

Harry let that 'us' and 'we' sink in slowly. It implied camaraderie, a familial relationship, which Mary apparently already took for granted. Did she dare to believe in that?

"Does . . . John hate me?" she whispered after a long pause. "He was so angry when he left last week."

Gasping, Mary impulsively rose from her seat and threw her arms around Harry's shoulders. "Oh, my dear, no!" she cried, hugging her tightly. "He was angry, yes, but it had nothing whatsoever to do with you." She sank down onto the arm of Harry's chair and gave a little, strangled sob, shaking a bit with silent weeping. Then, getting control of herself, she continued, "He was angry with himself, for being away. And I think . . . ." She stopped for moment, holding her breath. "I think he was angry with the man who assaulted me years ago and made such a mess of my insides. That's why I lost the baby—something that happened a decade ago."

Harry had always thought of Mary as a bubble-headed bimbo—or else completely self-aggrandizing and opportunistic. It had never occurred to her that Mary might have had to rise above a difficult, even tragic, past. In fact, if she were honest, she'd never really thought of Mary as being a real person at all. Certainly not a person Harry could understand and appreciate. Someone who could be a friend.

Mary rose and wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her dressing gown. "Let's go into the kitchen and have a cuppa, shall we? I'm so happy to meet you in person at last. We have a great deal to talk about, don't we?"

But Harry did very little of the talking. Mary had any number of amusing anecdotes about life with Sherlock and John, and she soon had Harry in convulsions of laughter. An hour later, she felt utterly at home with her warm-hearted sister-in-law.

"And when I came back upstairs," Mary was saying, "a good half of the cake icing was missing from the bowl. Sherlock swore he hadn't touched it, was absolutely indignant that I would suggest such a thing! But, Lord! The smell of buttercream coming from that man's mouth! It's no wonder he felt ill all next day! But didn't it make it all the easier for me to steal the picklocks from his pocket?"

"Why on earth did you need picklocks?" Harry asked in astonishment.

"Well, to break into a house with, of course," Mary replied impishly. "Sherlock and John aren't the only crime fighters in the family. Solved a murder next day, my friend Molly and I did. Unfortunately, we had to commit a few little crimes along the way to do it."

"Harry?" John's voice cut through the girls' chortling. "I didn't know you were here until I ran into Clara downstairs." He looked entirely stupefied at the sight of his wife and his sister giggling together like old school chums.

"Oh, John," Harry flew to him and flung her arms around her brother. Her laughter turned instantly to tears. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry."

He held her as he always had held her—her little brother, so strong and so good, always looking after her. "It's all right," he murmured. "It's all going to be all right."

000

Five years later, Harry looked through tear-filled eyes at her brother across a newly-dug grave. He was so stoic and silent, his stature so straight and so strong, but his soldier's mask was unable to completely disguise the devastation in his eyes. She clutched Clara's hand and bit back the sobs, her throat aching with grief.

And she knew the bitterness of having been right after all.

000

The stories Mary mentions to Harry come from "Suture Self" and chapters 3 and 4 of "Making Friends and Forming Alliances." For the circumstances of Mary's death, see "Invictus" and "Family Dynamics Part Two."


End file.
